to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

13

SEC. CLO. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,FIRST CLO. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes-mark you that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

SEC. CLO. But is this law?

22

FIRST CLO. Ay, marry, is 't; crowner's quest law. SEC. CLO. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

28

FIRST CLO. Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

SEC. CLO. Was he a gentleman?

FIRST CLO. He was the first that ever bore arms.
SEC. CLO. Why, he had none.

39

FIRST CLO. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:' Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself—

SEC. CLO. Go to.

FIRST CLO. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

and forfeiture were complete as soon as these three elements of the act were complete. The strangeness of the case seems to have tickled Shakspere's fancy, and made him parody the legal argument in his clowns' talk.

18 If the man go to this water. An old edition of the 'Justice of the Peace' lays down as follows: In some cases the act may be involuntary; as if I fall down, and another, pursuing his wicked intent to kill me, falls upon my sword and kills himself, he is 'felo de se.' But if I stand on my defence, being assaulted, and he runs on my sword and kills himself, he is not 'felo de se.' It looks as if Shakspere was ridiculing these distinctions.

32 Their even Christian.

The Cambridge editors quote the old words 'even-caitiff,' 'even-servant,' &c.

SEC. CLO. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

50

FIRST CLO. I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

:

SEC. CLO. 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'

FIRST CLO. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

SEC. CLO. Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLO. To't.

SEC. CLO. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

60

FIRST CLO. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this question next, say a gravemaker:' the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[Exit SECOND CLOWN. [He digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,

70

68 Yaughan. The names Yaughan and Yorick are supposed to be Anglicised forms of Johann and Georg: the latter being like Hollock,' the unceremonious pronunciation of 'Hohenlohe.'

69 In youth, &c. The clown sings nonsensically disjointed lines of a sonnet by Lord Vaux, called 'The Aged Lover Renouncing Love.'

"I lothe that I did love

In youth that I thought swete
As time requires for my behove
Methinkes they are not mete.
"For age with stelying steppes

Hath clawed me with his crowche;
And lusty life away she leaps,
As there had been none such.

"For beauty with her band

These crooked cares have brought,

And shipped me into the land

From whence I first was brought."

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,

O, methought, there was nothing meet.

HAM. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

HOR. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. HAM. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

FIRST CLO. [Sings]

But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.

80

[Throws up a skull. HAM. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HOR. It might, my lord.

89

HAM. Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord sucha-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not? HOR. Ay, my lord.

HAM. Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on 't.

ΙΟΙ

87 O'er-reaches. Many editions read 'o'er-offices.' If the former is correct, the sense is probably simply 'reaches over.' 97 The mazzard. This word is said to be derived from 'mâchoire,' a jaw.

IOI Mine ache to think of it. Artistic temperaments often shrink with peculiar abhorrence from the accessories of death. In Chantrey's life there is a singular account of the horror felt by him at hearing that the bones were 'carted away' from a London churchyard. For the infinite trouble taken by Goethe to avoid any sight or sound of death, see Hutton's instructive Essay on 'Goethe and his Influence.'

101 Loggats. A species of Aunt Sally. The game is fully described by the Cambridge editors.

FIRST CLO. [Sings]

A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up another skull. HAM. There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HOR. Not a jot more, my lord.

HAM. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
HOR. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

121

HAM. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?

FIRST CLO. Mine, sir. [Sings]

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

130

HAM. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in 't. FIRST CLO. You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore it is not yours; for my part, I do not lie in 't, and yet it is

mine.

HAM. Thou dost lie in 't, to be in't and say it is thine; 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

113 Statutes, &c. For these law terms see Blackstone, book 2, c. 10, and appendix 5 to vol. 2; also Lord Campbell on Shakspere's Legal Knowledge (ad locum), and As You Like It, page 39, note 3.

119 A pair of indentures. The lawyer now occupies no more space than one of his deeds would cover, although the convey. ances of his lands would more than fill his grave.

FIRST CLO. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again,

from me to you.

HAM. What man dost thou dig it for?
FIRST CLO. For no man, sir.

HAM. What woman, then?

FIRST CLO. For none, neither.

HAM. Who is to be buried in 't?

140

FIRST CLO. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAM. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

154 FIRST CLO. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. HAM. How long is that since?

FIRST CLO. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England. 162

HAM. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? FIRST CLO. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

HAM. Why?

FIRST CLO. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the

men are as mad as he.

HAM. How came he mad?

FIRST CLO. Very strangely, they say.

HAM. How strangely?

FIRST CLO. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAM. Upon what ground?

170

FIRST CLO. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAM. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? FIRST CLO. I' faith, he will last you some eight year or

nine year a tanner will last you nine year. HAM. Why he more than another?

184

FIRST CLO. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your dead body.

153 Galls his kibe: hurts his sore heel.

Here's a